KUALA LUMPUR: The Road Transport Department (JPJ) is simply carrying out its duty by not renewing the driving licences of those blacklisted by traffic police, said Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha.

“The JPJ is only an enforcement agency which uses the list provided by traffic police,” he said at a press conference after opening the ATD Solution APAC headquarters here yesterday.

He said the ministry had received complaints from motorists who claimed that they did not receive the notice of summonses and were not aware of the offences they had committed.

“This problem needs to be addressed but we cannot do anything to take their names out of the system,” he said.

Recently, it was reported that the police had issued more than 10 million “saman ekor” (traffic offences caught on camera) since 2000 and motorists who ignored these summonses risked being brought to the police station.

Federal Traffic Police chief SAC II Datuk Abdul Aziz Yusof said police could bring those issued with warrants of arrest to the stations and they would only be released on police bail.

PUTRAJAYA: The Road Transport Depart­ment (JPJ) should stop blacklisting vehicle owners for failing to settle saman ekor issued by the police as it is unlawful and unconstitutional, said PAS vice-president Datuk Mahfuz Omar.

Mahfuz said the Sabah and Sarawak High Court confirmed in a judgment in 2008 that the JPJ did not have the authority to deny motorists the right to renew their licences and road taxes or stop the change of ownership of vehicles over the non-payment of summonses.

The High Court, he said, decided that this was in violation of Article 13 of the Federal Constitution and Section 17 of the Road Transport Act 1981 (RTA).

He said under the law, the JPJ director was empowered to blacklist a vehicle owner if the person has contravened or committed an offence under the RTA or the Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board Act (CVLBA)

“But in the case of Leonard Lim Yaw Chiang vs the Sarawak Road Transport Department (JPJ), the Sabah and Sarawak High Court decided that the person should only be deemed to have contravened the RTA and CVLBA or committed an offence under the two acts if they failed to appear in court or have been found guilty by the court.

“The High Court also found that the act of blacklisting vehicle owners over saman ekor was tantamount to compelling the person to admit to the alleged offence and pay the compound and as such was wrong,” he told reporters after handing a memorandum to the Transport Ministry here yesterday.

The memorandum called for the minister to intervene and stop the JPJ from blacklisting vehicle owners.

Mahfuz said there was also a lot of confusion over the letters police sent to vehicle owners for alleged traffic offences as some thought they were summonses.

PUTRAJAYA: Doing away with saman ekorcompletely may invite bribery and abuse of power.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha said the Government had no plans to stop issuing such notices.

Instead, Kong said the system would be improved by ensuring that notices were issued according to a set schedule and by updating car owner’s registration details.

“The Ministry does not agree with the suggestion that traffic enforcement officers issue on-the-spot summonses to traffic offenders,” Kong said in a statement yesterday.

He was responding to Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin’s suggestion to do away with saman ekor in favour of on-the-spot summonses on Tuesday.

“This is because it might encourage more cases of bribery (of enforcement officers) and abuse of power,” Kong added.

He said that most complaints by car owners were because they were sent several summonses at once for offences that were committed years ago, and the car owner had forgetten the circumstances when the summonses were issued or that the vehicle had been sold to a third party.

He said these problems could be overcome if summonses were issued within a certain time frame.